Nina: ‘So what should we do now, Marco? This one has fallen asleep.’
Modesta: ‘I’m not sleeping. I just closed my eyes because I don’t feel like talking.’
Marco: ‘It’s not a problem, Nina, we’ll take her upstairs. I’ll do it … Look, she’s taken off her shoes and curled up as if she were already in bed. How lifeless she is! Are you sure it’s nothing serious?’
Nina: ‘No, no, this always happens! She can go for days and days without sleeping, even back then in prison, then all of a sudden she can sleep for two days and two nights.’
Marco: ‘How strange!’
Nina: ‘Carluzzu told me it’s a talent great leaders have. I don’t know if he was joking — Carluzzu is always kidding around. Actually, he told me that when Caesar — Julius Caesar, I mean — didn’t know what to do, he would fall asleep.’
Marco: ‘Don’t make me laugh, Nina. I’m afraid I’ll drop her or wake her up.’
Nina: ‘Not a chance! When she’s like this not even an earthquake could wake her.’
I can’t be sleeping if I can hear their words. And I could make him have an apoplectic attack, as Nina says, if I were to start screaming or laughing. But I don’t feel like talking, especially now that Carluzzu has joined the procession and is having a good time teasing Nina about how strong her musician friend is.
Carlo: ‘Hey, Nina, for once you have a strapping guy. How come? Have you changed your views on virility? I’ve always seen you with fairies and nymphets.’
When Carluzzu jokes like that he sounds a little like ’Ntoni. Why does that surprise you, Modesta? One way or another, they’re both Stella’s sons, except that Carluzzu — don’t tell ’Ntoni, he’d be offended, poor thing! — is much, much more intelligent than ’Ntoni.
95
‘Good morning, Zia.’
‘Oh Bambù, have they gone?’
‘Of course, it’s been two days!’
‘Go on, stop kidding. I heard it all perfectly. Carluzzu was teasing Nina…’
‘Sure, two days ago!’
‘I see: I was asleep and dreamt I wasn’t sleeping. In fact, I’m ravenous! This sleep hasn’t happened to me in a long time. I must have wanted to escape from something … but what?’
‘Maybe, as Nina says, you wanted to get away from our carrying on. She gave us quite a talking-to, good-naturedly I’d say, your Nina! And she’s right, because I myself have been very irritating lately. Even for the party, you had to do everything yourself.’
‘It was a lovely party, wasn’t it?’
‘Just the way Prando wanted it! The whole island is talking about it, and will do so for quite some time.’
‘Oh, Bambù, it’s déjà vu! I’ve already experienced this moment: me eating, you looking at me, the big window, the mirror with the vine leaves and gilded fruit. I woke up in this room that other time too, when I had typhus after being in prison. I wanted to ask you, and then I forgot…’
‘What?’
‘Maybe you don’t remember…’
‘Of course I remember! How could I forget the fall of Fascism and you about to die?’
‘That mirror, Bambolina — who put it there?’
‘I did.’
‘This was my room when I knew your mother. Did you know that?’
‘Really?’
‘What made you choose that particular mirror to hang there?’
‘I don’t know. It was in the attic.’
‘Now I know why I fell asleep. I wanted to stay here, now that the dead are gone and the house is lived in. It’s nice here. The girls must be awake, Bambù. Hear them laughing downstairs? How many are there?’
‘Beatrice, Gaia, and two or three of their friends who slept over … They can’t stop talking about the party. In their own way, they’re continuing it.’
‘Yes, I wanted to stay here!’
‘Oh, I wish! Stay here, Zia, stay!
‘I’d like to stay here with you, Bambù, but life goes on. Someone is knocking at the door. Let’s see who it is…’
Carlo: ‘Oh, Nonna, you had us worried. The whole island is worried! Everything is at a standstill in the bookshop! Your secretary — how pretty she is, wow! I almost don’t want to leave, so I can flirt with her — your secretary says she’s terrified without you … But you, how lovely you are, oh! You must stay like that for ever.’
Modesta: ‘A little exaggerated, don’t you think, Bambù?’
Carlo: ‘Well, at least until I’ve captured your image by having a daughter identical to you, or until I’ve written a great novel that depicts you to a tee.’
Bambù: ‘I’ll see to the latter!’
Carlo: ‘Oh, no, Bambù!’
Bambù: ‘Oh, yes I will!’
Carlo: ‘Oh, all right. What if we wrote it together?’
Modesta: ‘Together or not, don’t write it right away, please, because I plan to live until I’m a hundred. You don’t write about the living.’
Bambù: ‘What beautiful roses, Carluzzu! Why did you toss them on the table? I’ll put them in a vase. They’re suffering.’
Carlo: ‘Hey, Bambù, give me a hug before you take care of the flowers. This is the first time we’ll be far apart for so long.’
Bambù: ‘Listen to him! And the time you went to America?’
Carlo: ‘Just look at her, Modesta. She has tears in her eyes!’
Bambù: ‘Have some pity, Carluzzu! You all leave. I know it’s only right, but it saddens me.’
Carlo: ‘But I’ll be back. Military service isn’t for ever.’
Bambù: ‘You will come back, won’t you?’
Carlo: ‘Of course! And I’ll tell you all about what’s happened to me. What good is experiencing things if you don’t come back and share them in the piazza, talk about them at the bar and tell all your friends?’
Bambù: ‘You must be a bit of a sadist, Carluzzu, let me tell you. I bet you’re going away just so you can enjoy seeing us suffer. But I’m not falling for it anymore! I’d rather go over there and take my mind off of it with the flowers.’
Carlo: ‘Aren’t you going to come with me to the station?’
Bambù: ‘Sure, so I can watch you enjoy my tears. He’s a monster, this carusu!’
Carlo: ‘You do know that you’re a sweet little aunt, Zietta Bambù?’
Bambù: ‘Why? What is it, an excuse to make me stay here and suffer a little longer?’
Carlo: ‘You’re right when you say I like knowing that you worry. And I think it’s because when I was a child, everyone always left, and sometimes they didn’t come back. It must be a form of revenge: subjecting others to the abandonment I went through.
Bambù: ‘That may be, Carluzzu, but it seems a little too pat to me, even from a psychoanalytical point of view…’
Carlo: ‘Hey, Mody, why are your eyes shut? Are you feeling moved?’
Modesta: ‘Well of course! There’s no escaping someone who delights in moving you to pity.’
Carlo: ‘Oh, Mody, I brought you a book by a certain Pierre Daco, a shitty priest, as Nina would say. Look: What is Psychoanalysis? I spent all day yesterday reading it. This bastard turns it into Christianity. I couldn’t believe my eyes.’
Modesta: ‘And this surprises you? Before long, we’ll even have Christian materialism. Those priests weren’t born yesterday, as Nina says.’
Carlo: ‘We have to do something!’
Modesta: ‘You will, Carluzzu.’
Carlo: ‘But I’m also very fearful. They’re powerful, Mody! Oh, I almost forgot. Here: look at this cover.’
Modesta: ‘Why did you buy the Economist?’
Carlo: ‘Look, the person here, next to Brandt … Isn’t he a male copy of Joyce?’